Lavinia made a face. “Unfortunately, she had set a pair of street lads to watch me. When they saw me head toward the street where she lived, they ran back and warned her that I was on my way to her address. She always made sure her little spies knew where to find her. She quickly followed me on foot. She saw me talk to the old man in the park and then she saw me disappear down the alley behind Number Seventeen.”

Tobias folded his arms. “At that point, Aspasia, too, acted on impulse. She realized that if Lavinia was sneaking into her house it meant that she herself was now a suspect. She understood at once that she had to get rid of Lavinia and leave the country immediately.”

“So she seized the nearest hostage and tried to use him to take me captive,” Lavinia said. “But instead of an aged, infirm old man, she chose a retired professional killer.”

“What was the Memento-Mori Man doing in the park in front of her house?” Joan asked.

“Obviously he was waiting for her to return home.” Tobias reached into his pocket and removed the death’s-head ring he had found at the top of the staircase in Aspasia’s town house. “I believe that he went there to kill her. He was no doubt the one who had the message delivered to the housekeeper inducing her to leave the house for the afternoon.”

“He was waiting for his quarry,” Vale said. “But Lavinia showed up first.”

Tobias eyed Lavinia. “She no doubt complicated matters for him, but he seemed quite tolerant about the change in his plans. His ability to adjust his strategy on the spur of the moment was no doubt one of the reasons for his professional success years ago.”

“Where do you think he is now?” Joan asked.

“On his way back to his cottage by the sea, no doubt,” Lavinia said quietly. “I suspect that he only came out of retirement to avenge the deaths of his apprentices.”

“At least that is what he would have us believe,” Tobias growled. “Personally, I would not put any credence in anything he told you, Lavinia.”

She looked at him. “He was an old man, Tobias. And unarmed, except for his walking stick. You could have chased after him and shot him dead yesterday. Why did you let him go?”

Tobias clasped his hands behind his back and gazed out the window into the park. “I think he allowed himself to be taken hostage because he knew you were in that house and Aspasia intended to murder you. His goal was to protect you. By dispatching her when he did, he may well have saved your life. I owed him something for that.”

There was a short silence while they all contemplated the admission.

After a while, Lavinia cleared her throat. “There was one other reason why I gave in to impulse yesterday and went to Aspasia’s house.”

They all waited.

“I was looking for any excuse to connect her to the murders,” Lavinia said. “I never did like that woman.”


The envelope was on the step in front of Number 7 when Tobias arrived for breakfast the next morning. A prickle of awareness tingled between his shoulders when he stooped to pick it up.

He straightened swiftly and turned, searching the street. The only person about other than himself was an elderly gardener industriously clipping a hedge at the corner. The man’s face was shielded by a broad-brimmed hat. If he noticed Tobias’s scrutiny, he gave no sign.

Tobias watched him for a while before he examined the design imprinted in the blob of black wax that sealed the letter. He smiled to himself. When he looked up again, the gardener had disappeared.

He opened the door and stepped inside the front hall.

“There you are, Mr. March.” Mrs. Chilton came toward him, wiping her hands on her apron. “I thought I heard someone on the step. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”

“I know. A stunning surprise, is it not?”

She rolled her eyes and waved him off toward the breakfast room. He went down the hall, envelope in hand, and found Lavinia and Emeline at the table in the sunny little chamber.

“Good morning, sir,” Emeline said cheerfully. “What have you got there?”

“A letter that I found just now on your front step.”

Lavinia lowered her newspaper and eyed the envelope curiously.

“On the step, you say? I wonder who left it there?”

“Why don’t you open it and solve the mystery.” Tobias took a chair and handed the package to her.

She glanced at it with absent curiosity and then uttered a tiny yelp when she saw the death’s-head imprinted in the black wax.

“The Memento-Mori Man must have left it,” she told Emeline while she unfolded the letter. “I wonder what on earth he-” She broke off when a bank draft fell onto the table. “Goodness. A thousand pounds’

“Read the letter,” Emeline said, brimming with excitement. “Hurry, please, I cannot stand the suspense.”

Tobias poured coffee for himself. “Something tells me we have just been paid our fee for the case of the Memento-Mori Man.”

Lavinia studied the elegant handwriting and read the letter aloud.


My Dear Mrs. Lake and Mr. March:

I trust the enclosed draft will cover the fees and expenses for your services in this recent affair. I apologize for the inconvenience and the danger to you both.

I am aware that you likely have some lingering questions. I shall attempt to answer them. It is the least I can do under the circumstances.

You no doubt wonder why I did not take action against Aspasia Gray three years ago. The sad fact is that I never suspected her of murder. Indeed, I accepted the verdict of suicide in part because I knew that it had satisfied you, Mr. March. I was inclined to trust your judgment in the matter.

But there were two other reasons why I was willing to accept that Zachary had put the pistol to his own head. The first was that I knew him very well, having raised him from the age of eight, and I was aware that he possessed the sort of romantical, melodramatic temperament that is sometimes associated with those who take their own lives.

The second reason I accepted it, and I pray you will forgive me, Mrs. Lake, was that at the time it simply never occurred to me that a lady would take up the profession in which I had trained my apprentices, let alone manage to take one of them by surprise. I knew nothing of Mrs. Gray’s partnership with Zachary, of course.

A year ago another of my apprentices prepared to take up the career for which he had been trained. He had grown to adulthood idolizing his brother, and he wanted nothing more than to prove that he was as bold and daring and professional as Zachary.

Shortly after he arrived in London, he went to Zachary’s old lodgings and found a letter in the hidden wall safe. In the course of their apprenticeship, I impressed upon all of my boys the importance of maintaining two safes. Anyone who conducts a search is likely to be satisfied with the discovery of a single secret hiding place.


“One of my many mistakes three years ago.” Tobias slathered currant jam on a slice of toast. “I found the first safe because Aspasia had made certain that I would do so. But obviously even she did not know about the second safe.”


In his letter to Pierce, Zachary made it clear that he had taken Aspasia Gray not only as his lover but also as his partner. It was evident that he was passionately in love with her, but his training ran deep. As a precaution against her betrayal, he implicated her in the letter. He no doubt intended to send it if he ever had cause to become suspicious of her. But he delayed too long and the letter was never mailed.

When Pierce found the letter in the second safe, he saw only the financial opportunities. When Mrs. Gray returned to London he made plans to blackmail her. He also sent a note to me, informing me of his discovery.

Unfortunately, I was traveling at the time and therefore was not at home when the letter arrived. When I finally received it, I understood the danger and made arrangements to come to London at once. But as you know, I was too late to save Pierce.

I arrived at his lodgings shortly after you and your young friends went in through the back door and found the body, Mr. March. I watched you from across the street when you came out, and I knew at once that my worst fears had been confirmed.

With two apprentices dead after a connection to Mrs. Gray, I no longer had any doubts about the identity of their killer. I went to see her yesterday afternoon and you know the rest.

I regret to say that neither Zachary nor Pierce proved to be well-suited to the business. Zachary developed an unfortunate taste for the darker passions aroused in the course of the hunt and lost sight of the importance of selecting only quarry that deserved to be hunted.

For his part, Pierce was interested primarily in the financial aspects of the business and, while I am happy to say that his early selections were more in keeping with the firm’s goals, I fear it was only a matter of time before he, too, lost sight of the higher purpose for which he had been trained. But regardless of the outcome, both young men had been my apprentices and I had a duty to avenge them. It is done.

There is nothing left to be said. I shall fade back into my retirement and trouble you no more.

Oh, one more thing: Mrs. Lake, I stopped at the herbalist’s shop in Wren Street as you suggested and was given a very fine tonic. I have every expectation of outliving my doctor.

Perhaps I still have time for a few more dreams.

Yours truly,

“Well.” Lavinia refolded the letter very slowly. “I trust that is the last we will hear of the Memento-Mori Man. He didn’t tie up all the loose ends, though, did he? We will never be able to prove that Lady Ferring and her friends Mrs. Stockard and Lady Huxford were among Pierce’s clients, but I cannot say I am entirely sorry about that. One cannot help but admire their fortitude and determination to achieve justice in their own way when it was denied to them by the world, can one?”